Mount Mansfield, Vermont, from My Hotel Bedroom (Dec. 2017)

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Every reader and blogger is invited to my Christmas Open House, which will begin on December 1st and end on December 31st. If you'd like to participate, you may leave a comment on this post or leave a comment by clicking on the Christmas Open House Icon.

Today I've been researching books that are either set in the darkest month of the year or that have Christmas as a theme or setting.

I'm trying to amass as many titles as I can for our all-out December Reading Blast!

Please share your favorite titles so that we can all suggest books to each other and borrow from libraries and order from bookstores!

I will add the titles you suggest to my next post.

Here are some of the books I haven't read that I'd like to read in December. (Have you read one or more of them?)

A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks (3-star reviews, mostly)

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve (3-4 star reviews, mostly)

A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor (high marks)

The Tenth of December--a short story in the collection of the same title by George Saunders.

A Christmas Hope by Anne Perry (2013). This one is getting 5-star reviews. As you are probably aware, her Christmas mysteries are set during the Victorian era. This one's synopsis got me very interested.

What I Have Read So Far:Starry Night (2013) by Debbie Macomber. My first Macomber read! Gulp. This is a book that I reserved for "bedtime," when my mind is extremely dull and limited. Reading a book like this late at night enables me to remember the limited number of details about characters and plot. Late at night is my witless time of day. Yet the lack of consistency in the characterization of the male lead disturbed me. But, what me, worry? At 11pm at night? No way.

Now reading another Christmas cozy mystery, before bed only!: Murder of a Stacked Librarian: A Scumble River Mystery by Denise Swanson (2013). Mildly entertaining as only a cozy can be. A comfort late at night for the exhausted and witless reader. Here, here!

2 comments:

Oh, yes! I thoroughly ransacked my Christmas books collection, and I'm surprised I don't have the story anywhere. So I ordered the 50th anniversary edition of the picture book with illustrations by Beth Peck. This edition received a starred review in School Library Journal in 2006. Can't wait to get it in the house! Judith

About Me

I live in a beautiful mountainous wilderness region of northern New York. This environment perfectly suits all my outdoor interests: bushwhacking, hiking, alpine and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and the study of nature.
Since moving to the Adirondacks in 2005 from the Boston area, I still find plenty of time for reading, but far less time for writing and painting, though I still enjoy these activities.
Although I am a former educator, I am now a professional genealogist, specializing in New York and New England ancestries, from the 1600s through the twentieth century.